Practice Management Software: Does Your Revenue Cycle Manangement Measure Up?
Good revenue cycle management allows you to focus on what’s most important in your practice.
Are you in control of your revenue cycle? Your practice depends on having a good plan in place for ongoing revenue cycle management. Dropped billing opportunities and billing errors all impact the revenue of your practice. If your revenue cycle management (RCM) could be tightened up, practice management software can help.
What Does Quality Revenue Cycle Management Look Like?
Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes items slip through the cracks. Your goal is to make as few mistakes as possible, because each mistake impacts your revenue. Good RCM means that you are detail-oriented. Your staff notice when there’s a canceled appointment and they fill it. They carefully check patient information and patient insurance information before the appointment begins. After you see the patient, your staff send out insurance claims or bills, and they do it in a timely fashion. If a claim is denied, your staff follow through to ensure that they track down the error and correct it so that your practice receives the funds from that claim.
Moving to practice management software reduces potential errors from paper billing.
How Can You Tell If Your RCM Measures Up?
If you’re concerned about your revenue cycle management, here are some flags to watch for:
Are appointments full, or are there many gaps?
Is patient information accurate?
Were your patients billed for their co-pays?
How quickly do your staff send bills or process claims?
What happens when a claim is denied?
Why are claims being denied?
While no one is perfect, you want to see few errors in the categories above. Appointments should be filled if there are patients to fill them, and patients should be billed soon after their appointment. You want to see a claims denial rate of under 4 percent.
How Practice Management Software Can Help Your RCM
Since everyone makes mistakes, you need your practice management software to back up your staff. Good practice management software can help you through structured reminders and a day-to-day analysis of what was supposed to occur and what actually occurred in your practice.
Practice management software can remind you that bills need to be sent or are languishing unpaid. It makes sure that your patient information is up to date and that your codes are specific and accurate. If there’s a claims denial, you can track why this happened and you’ll be prompted to pursue it. Practice management software acts as your mental backup system. You need to put in the data, but it helps your staff remember to do so in a timely and accurate fashion. When you use practice management software, your staff have an instant and highly-visible window into what’s going on with your finances right now, and that allows them to follow up on errors or to avoid making them entirely.
Curious whether practice management software could help your medical practice run more smoothly? Visit PracticeSuite today and sign up for a trial version.
